Sunday, 6 July 2014

Imperial Fist Vindicator

Its been a busy few weeks but I've finally finished my vindicator. I've always been a huge fan of the actual model and the vindicator's ability and value for points on the battle field, so it was a no brainer to include one in my latest army.

I won't bang on about the kit too much, I think just about every one has put a rhino chassis together at some stage or another. The one thing I did convert to make the vehicle fit with the rest of army better was the combi bolter for the mkIII armoured gunner. I made it from the supplied storm bolter, a plasma gun from the tartaros terminator special weapon set and some plasti card.

Now like with every project I undertake I like to try something different or try perfect some thing, this time it was decals. I never used to use decals because I didn't know how to make them look good so this time I used seven to test my self. I did a bit of research before I used decals for the first time in years on my spartan and learned a few things. To get a good natural finish Gloss Varnish, micro sol, micro set and matt varnish set are you best friends when it comes to putting on decals. There are a lot of good tutorials on how how to do decals online, but in summary after watching a few I found the general idea was to undercoat the area with gloss varnish so the decal has a very flat smooth surface to cling to, micro set to help the decal adhere, micro sol to soften the decal and help it to conform to the surface and any detail under it and finally matt varnish to seal the decal and protect it from and weathering techniques that could damage the decal. I'm fairly happy with the end result but I do have some silvering on a couple of the smaller decals, ah well I'll get it prefect next time!

On the battle field the vindicator is great value at 120 points and compliments my army very well. At the moment I field large amounts of basic troops with minimal or no organic heavy support, the vindicator gives them the close support they need! The S10 AP 2 demolished cannon is ideal for tearing huge holes in large squads making the job of destroying them more manageable with large volumes of bolter fire from my basic troops or attacking heavy vehicles taking advantage of the ordinance rule. The vehicle also has a some great options in 30k in the form of ceramite armour and ability to mount a heavy bolter or heavy flamer on the vehicle. The vindicator has the option to swap out the demolisher cannon for a laser destroyer array for 10 points, in my opinion if you really want to take laser destroyers take rapier batteries unless the option really fills a niche roll in your army.

On the downside the main disadvantage for me using this vehicle is the 24 inch range. Against an army with a range advantage it will struggle to get close and start causing some carnage. The short range also brings it into range of shorter range anti armour weapons which makes manoeuvring and facing the vehicle very important to its survivability.

All in all in my opinion the vindicator is a great model to paint and a super useful vehicle on the battle field of the thirty first millennium. I hope you enjoyed the article and if your new to the hobby picked something up. Thanks for reading, see you next time.